


Beneath Her Shoe

by Crystalwren



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, In the Rose Garden Forum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:32:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalwren/pseuds/Crystalwren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Shiori and Kozue meet, it doesn't go well. Set after Episodes 28 and 29.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath Her Shoe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the In The Rose Garden forum, the SKU drabble game thread, waaaaaaay baaaaack in 2010. The prompts were: Kozue, Shiori, pressed flowers

The whispers follow her down the corridor. Shiori keeps her head down, focuses on the bouquet of roses in her hands, but she can still hear what’s being said. She’s meant to.

“That’s the one who-”

“My god, did you see it? She was on her knees and everything-”

“So pathetic-”

The perfume is thick enough to make her head spin and every time she looks up there’s someone pointing and laughing. Some of them whisper behind their hand but others don’t even bother to do that. They wait for her to look up and then they laugh.

“Did everything but offer to suck him off right there and then-”

The roses go all blurry and she blinks rapidly. Even people she thought were her friends were laughing at her. Even Juri had come knocking on the door, her aristocratic features twisted into something like concern but it was fake. Juri was fake, all of Shiori’s friends were fake. Even Rukka’s love was fake. Fake, fake, fake.

“Hey, you think she’d do me if I asked? She’s obviously desperate-”

Shiori breaks and runs. She bolts down the corridor, the thorns stinging her hands. Up a couple flights of stairs and she’s out of breath already, athletics being one of the many areas she’s a failure in. There’s the classroom, finally, and she darts inside. The pain in her hands and she looks down, loosens her grip. The tissue paper is torn where she gripped too tight, and bloody around the thorns.

“Can I help you?”

Blue eyes and blue hair; a single girl wiping down a desktop and she really, really looks like that kid Miki, the one that’s on the student council, the school genius. The girl smiles politely. Indifferent, not a flicker of recognition across those cool eyes and Shiori wonders if the girl knows about what happened with Rukka.

“The chairman sent these,” Shiori says, thrusting out the bouquet, “For Sensei.”

“There’s a vase in that cupboard over there,” the girl gestures vaguely and goes back to wiping. Shiori fetches the vase and puts it on Sensei’s desk. She strips the torn tissue paper away and drops it into a wastebasket and starts to arrange the flowers into the vase.

“So what did you watch on television last night?” Shiori asks. The girl doesn’t look up or even change her expression.

“I don’t watch television,” the girl says and there’s not so much as a sliver of amusement or judgement in those cold eyes and Shiori’s heart thumps at the thought that maybe, in the whole of Ohtori, she’s found the single person that doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t know how worthless and pathetic she is.

“I don’t watch it either.” This is a lie. Shiori is addicted to the worst kind of soap operas.

“It’s noisy and pointless.” The girl moves onto another desk and Shiori licks a drop of blood from her palm. The rose stems are stained bloody but there’s nothing that can be done about that.

“I know exactly what you mean.” A great rush of relief hot up Shiori’s spine. This girl, she’s younger than Shiori, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s no prejudice, no prior knowledge, Shiori can tell her side of the story and finally she would have a friend who understands, who isn’t secretly laughing at her.

“My name is Shiori.”

“I know.” Emotionless. There’s recognition but no contempt. This girl isn’t judging her. This girl doesn’t care about what happened. Surely, it means that finally, finally, Shiori is understood. Finally, a real friend, a true friend. Finally, someone who understands just how Shiori feels when she’s lying awake in her bed at night, as depression and inadequacy gnaw at her insides.

Giddy with delight, Shiori smiles and offers the girl a bloodied rose. “What’s your name?” and suddenly the girl’s indifferent gaze is replaced by malice. There’s a sharp crack as her hand strikes Shiori’s. The rose is knocked to the ground.

“That was an observation, not an invitation,” the girl says. She steps past Shiori, a sharp-edged gait and a crunching sound as she treads on the rose, the delicate petals smeared to paste. An entire world of contempt in her eyes and she turns her back on Shiori, walks out of the room.

Shiori stares after the girl, the fragrance of roses strong enough to choke her.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> (Poor Shiori; it isn't personal, you know. You're just not Miki.)


End file.
